Flexicurity and employee participation in workplaces during the crisis: Turkey compared to the European Union

Abstract

Turkey has a mixture of labour market system which provides some deregulated flexible labour market applications and some strict job protection applications characterising same principles with the European Union countries. In this paper, the EU flexicurity approach and Turkish labour market will be analyzed. Extant research on flexicurity has focused primarily on the macro level of analysis. In this research we have examined flexicurity at company level as connecting human relations management (HRM) and industrial relations (IR). We follow the European Commission's definition and argue that company-level flexicurity in the restructuring process is a specific and extraordinary HRM activity. Furthermore, our unit of analysis is management and labour union and works council representavies' attitudes related to flexicurity applications and employee participation in the EU27 countries and in Turkey as an EU candidate country. This study focuses also on analysis and suggestions for improving restructuring and transition to new employment with the help of company-level flexicurity in the EU27 and in Turkey during the restructuring process of the global crisis with extend to the unification process of Turkey with the EU. As, flexicurity and employee participation applications investigated and compared between Turkey and the EU companies which found that there are a high level of comparability and compliance between Turkish and the EU integral market, at least for leading companies. There are also some characteristic differences between company level practices throughout EU member and candidate countries including Turkey.